ProjectSWITCH!

Switch! speculates on alternatives to current modes of energy consumption and challenges design that affirms the status quo or merely incremental change. Learning from the arts, social sciences, and environmental studies, Switch! conceives and materializes alternative ways of living – and consuming. Graphics, products, and the built environment are designed to express issues of ecological complexity, un/desirable futures, cultural norms, and social in/justice. Conceptually, the Switch! research program explores energy as embedded within multiple technical, material, social, and political systems – and designs that disrupt or introduce new values within these 'energy ecologies'. Methodologically, approaches from critical design, futures studies and design anthropology are developed to stage interventions and discussions in sites of consumption, professional settings, and public forums.

As a practice-based research program, Switch! has been carried out through collaborative development of design examples, namely, Energy Futures, Telltale, 3Ecologies, Green Memes, Ab|Norm and Symbiots.

Switch! was a design research program at the Interactive Institute sponsored by the Swedish Energy Agency (Energimyndigheten) between 2008 and 2009. More info is available on the web link below.

There is no single answer to the question of how people should live nor any silver bullet to solve current ecological problems – and yet, we must seek new ways to think and act in light of emerging environmental challenges. Given the power of design to influence consumer and societal values, its role must be questioned and renewed in relation to current problematics of mass-production and (over)consumption. SWITCH! Design and everyday energy ecologies is a book that expands current approaches and strategies within design discourse concerning sustainability and environmentalism.

Evading design genres of greenwashing and eco-horror, future utopias and dystopias, the authors of this book attempt to raise more fundamental questions. They ask, for example, how does design mediate people’s access to nature and control over resources? What kinds of futures – or who’s – do we assume, desire and determine by design? How are environmental experiences, risks and values made visible in everyday life? These questions were explored in a series of collaborative and experimental design processes carried out since 2008 by an international team of designers, artists, architects, computer and social scientists at the Interactive Institute in Sweden.

The book features original texts by researchers and previously unpublished images and illustrations. Collectively authored, the book is a highly visual and reflective presentation of the 6 resulting projects –‘Energy Futures’, ‘3Ecologies’, ‘Green Memes’, ‘Telltale’, 'Ab|Norm' and ‘Symbiots’ – which are also contextualized within contemporary themes in ecology, critical design and practice-based research.

SWITCH! Design and everyday energy ecologies is edited by Ramia Mazé, with contributors Martin Avila, Jenny Bergström, Loove Broms, John Carpenter, Brendon Clark, Karin Ehrnberger, Alberto Frigo, Aude Messager, Johan Redström, Thomas Thwaites, Anna Vallgårda, Başar Önal, maoworks (Tobi Schneidler, Tom Ballhatchet and Solon Sasson), Olivia Jeczmyk and Bildinstitutet. Published by the Interactive Institute, the book is designed by Martin Frostner and Lisa Olausson at Medium. The book is published and distributed in a sustainable way, through a limited-edition print version and an electronic version.

order the book

Print version of Switch! at Antenne Books
Print version of Switch! at Amazon.com
Electronic version of Switch! at this English-language website: Addbooks.se
Electronic version of Switch! at this Swedish-language website: Bokus.se and Adlibris.se
Electronic version of Switch! is also widely available through libraries
Press may contact ramia.maze [at] tii.se for a review copy

Collaborators:

Project leader:

Ramia Mazé

Sponsors:

Switch! is a design research program at the Interactive Institute sponsored by the Swedish Energy Agency (Energimyndigheten) in 2008-2009.

Additional support was received for developing design examples through: the Smart Textiles initiative, funded by the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems (VINNOVA), and Forms of Sustainability, a design research program at the Interactive Institute funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet). Participants in Switch! received additional support through individual artistic grants, research projects, and doctoral studies at other institutions including: Iaspis / Swedish Arts Grants Committee; IT University Copenhagen; Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design; Linköping University, and; School of Design and Crafts at the University of Gothenburg.

Educational collaboration:

Switch! has been part of educational curricula at: Umeå Institute of Design (through the 'Design Ethnography and Participatory Design' course within the Interaction Design MA program) and Konstfack (through the 'Environmental Experience' course in the Experience Design MA program and through the 'Research Through Practice' MA course).